1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and, in particular, to manufacturing vehicles. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for identifying a nonconformance in the assembling of vehicles in a manufacturing environment.
2. Background
The assembly of an aircraft is an extremely complex process. Hundreds of thousands of parts may be assembled for an aircraft.
The assembly of an aircraft may involve manufacturing different parts of the aircraft in geographically diverse locations. These different parts may then be finally assembled in a single location. For example, different portions of a fuselage of the composite aircraft may be assembled in different locations and flown to a central location where the final assembly line is located. Additionally, other parts such as engines, auxiliary power units, seats, computer systems, line replaceable units, or other components in aircraft may be shipped to this final location for assembly to form the assembled aircraft.
The assembly of the different parts involves assigning tasks to different operators. The assignment of these tasks may take the form of shop order instances. Each shop order instance may include instructions and an identification of parts for a particular assembly in the aircraft.
Currently, operators on the shop floor where the assembly of the aircraft occurs may need to identify locations for the assembly of parts for shop order instances. These locations are ones relative to the aircraft being assembled. The operator assigned a task to assemble a part for the aircraft may look at paper copies of the parts of aircraft to determine where to perform tasks to install or assemble parts for the aircraft. These paper copies may provide some guidance to an operator, but often times they may be difficult to understand and may not include sufficient information.
In some cases, the operator may view a computer-aided design model of an aircraft using a computer-aided design software system. These types of systems, however, require training and experience to maneuver through the model of the aircraft.
For example, an operator of the computer-aided design software system often uses aircraft coordinates to identify locations in the aircraft. Aircraft coordinates have an origin relative to some location in the aircraft. Further, when traversing through the model, locations are identified using aircraft coordinates. These aircraft coordinates, however, are not helpful to an operator that is assigned a task in a shop order instance. The aircraft coordinates may need to be translated into action locations for the operator.
For example, an operator may have a task to perform inspections on parts that have been assembled or installed. The inspection may include finding the parts on the aircraft, determining whether a nonconformance is present in the installation or assembly of the parts, and recording whether a nonconformance is present. For example, the nonconformance may be an incorrect hole location, an incorrect hole size, a nonfunctioning part, an incorrect part, or some other nonconformance.
Locating the parts for inspection may be more challenging and time-consuming than desired with current techniques for identifying locations of parts in an aircraft. As a result, operators may take more time than needed, may need additional training, or both, to view locations in the aircraft where tasks in a shop order instance are to be performed. This additional time or training may increase the time or expense needed to assemble an aircraft.
The results of these inspections may include an identification of nonconformances. Nonconformance may be any part that does not meet the specification for the aircraft. For example, a nonconformance may be present when an incorrect part has been installed. One example of an incorrect part may be a handle having an incorrect color. In another illustrative example, a nonconformance may be an incorrect type of handle. In another example, a nonconformance may be an absence of cables specified for the aircraft in a particular location. In another example, a nonconformance may be a hole having an incorrect size or in an incorrect location. Yet another nonconformance may be incorrect spacing of seats.
Currently, nonconformances are stored in various forms for processing. For example, information about nonconformances may be stored in databases, spreadsheets, documents, and other types of data structures as nonconformance data. This type of data is typically textual data.
Identifying locations for these nonconformances and analyzing nonconformances are currently more difficult than desired. With the amount of nonconformance data and the storage of nonconformance data in databases and spreadsheets, reviewing this nonconformance data may be extremely difficult or impossible in some cases. For example, with the amounts of nonconformance data identifying locations and the part number of parts for nonconformances may be more time-consuming and difficult than desired.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues.